


hanging all her hopes on the stars

by carrieevew



Series: Bellarke Bingo [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Apocalypse, Bellarke Bingo, F/M, Getting Together, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 19:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20140948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrieevew/pseuds/carrieevew
Summary: a month ago, Bellamy and Clarke slept together. a one-time, drunken thing and now they are very much not talking about it. in fact, they are not really talking about anything because Clarke is sure Bellamy doesn't want it to mean anything and since she's been in love with him for years now, this all feels pretty much like the world is ending.the world, not one to be outdone, decides to show off and actually ends.





	hanging all her hopes on the stars

**Author's Note:**

> i promised myself that i'm gonna get this out before the finale tonight, so i kinda rushed through and i'm still cutting it a bit short. 
> 
> bear in mind that all my scientific knowledge comes from _Eureka_ and _MythBusters_. also _Top Gear_, so you can imagine the level of expertise in this is not--great. but i do hope you can enjoy this any way.
> 
> written for [Bellarke Bingo](https://bellarkebingo.tumblr.com/), prompts used: post-apocalyptic world au, one-night stand and accidental baby acquisition. i may or may not have played a little loose with them, though.
> 
> _title from _[To the Moon and Back](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCm6gRHINqA)_ by Savage Garden._
> 
> _enjoy!_

Asking Bellamy to pick her up from the airport was not Clarke’s favourite idea but it’s not like she had any other choice. Arkadia was almost fifty miles away and the last bus drove off an hour before her plane landed, so Bellamy it was.

It’s not that Clarke didn’t want to see him. He was her best friend and she had been visiting her mother in Polis for a week, of course she missed him.

But then again, she had been missing him for almost a month now, ever since _that night_.

The night they all went out to the bar and got happy drunk celebrating Monty and Harper’s engagement. The night Bellamy and Clarke stumbled into his apartment, fell on the couch giggling and then snuggling, and then kissing, and then—

Clarke shook her head lightly. Nothing good could come from her reliving the night that she finally gave in, acted on her feeling for Bellamy and subsequently ruined her friendship with the one person she couldn’t bear to lose and lost anyway.

Her hands tightened on the phone she was holding and she was practically begging it to come alive with a text, so she could have something to distract her from the silence hanging heavily between them and wondering if it felt just as awkward to him as it did to her. Some blues band on the radio was singing a tearful song of love and loss and Clarke rolled her eyes. _How fitting_.

"So, how's your mom?" Bellamy asked, eyes focused on the road ahead.

"She's not great," Clark answered with a sigh. She spent the whole week itching to call Bellamy and talk to him about losing Marcus and helping her mother deal with everything but every time her fingered hovered over his name in her phone, she chickened out.

Clarke glanced at him sideways. Their eyes met for a brief moment before he looked back at the road and Clarke's shoulders dropped. She was so tired of not talking to him, she couldn't do it any longer.

"It's not easy for her. Jackson's with her now, so at least she's not alone but I'm still so worried. I mean, she's been sober for two years now and Marcus had been helping her so much with the recovery. I don't know if she can do this on her own. I tried to convince her to consider moving to Arkadia but she's got a new job in Polis now and I don't know, maybe uprooting her whole life will only make things worse," Clarke rambled on until she was out of breath. It felt so good to tell him everything.

"I have no idea what to do," Clarke said in a small voice, head bowed down and eyes closed. They snapped open when she felt Bellamy's rough fingers grabbing her hand and giving her a comforting squeeze. She hadn't touched him since that morning, when she woke up with his heavy arm wrapped around her middle, pulling her into his warm embrace. Now, his touch was sending chills up her arm and Clarke swallowed tightly.

When she asked Bellamy to come and pick her up from the airport, she wasn't sure he'd say yes. Not after she practically ran away after their night together and then spent the next month trying to avoid being alone with him. And when she saw him waiting for her, so engrossed in the book he was reading he didn't even notice people were bumping into him, she was hit with just how much she missed him in that time. But it was easier to pretend that nothing was going on than risk a conversation that she was desperately not ready to have with him.

She knew Bellamy loved her, of course he did. They were best friends, _family_. But he wasn't in love with her and she just couldn't bear him say that this was just a one-time thing.

Clarke was sure he noticed that something was going on with her, if the way she would catch him looking at her sometimes was any indication, but he didn't say anything, either. Instead, he was giving her time to work things out and come to him when she was ready, just like they always did. If anything, that was just about the best confirmation Clarke could get that the fact that they'd slept together didn't put his world on its head quite like it did hers.

Bellamy squeezed her fingers once more before releasing her and resting his hand on the gear lever between them. The song on the radio changed into something more upbeat and he started thrumming his fingers on the knob to the new beat.

Getting off the airplane, Clarke's stomach was in a knot, because no matter how much she missed him, an hour on the road seemed like the perfect moment for her to blurt out something stupid and confess all her inconvenient feelings with no way to run this time.

But somehow, even though she was still nervous, it wasn't awkward and uncomfortable anymore. It was just—silent.

Until it wasn’t.

They were no more than ten miles from Arkadia when the sirens blasted throughout the night air. The alarm lasted longer than anything they ever heard and when Clarke looked at Bellamy, she saw that his eyes were already on her, brow furrowed with concern.

Clarke unlocked her phone and scrolled through her contacts, looking for Wells' name. He worked at the city hall and even though he had nothing to do with the early warning systems, he was still probably a better source of information that the internet.

Clarke frowned when the call disconnected because Wells wasn't answering for too long. This wasn't like him at all. She dialled again but before she even heard the first beep, it disconnected again. Then the sirens suddenly went silent.

Bellamy shot her a confused glance, his mouth opening to say something, but before he had the chance, the road around them went completely dark and the radio cut off, leaving only static.

The two of them froze in their seats when they saw the city ahead of them go completely dark. Bellamy stepped on the breaks, slowing them down to a halt and Clarke's seatbelt slammed her back into her seat with a bruising force.

"What the fuck?!" Bellamy grumbled into the steering wheel. He was leaning forwards as much as he could, looking out and squinting, trying to see out through the windshield but the headlights of his ancient Range Rover seemed to have dimmed down as well.

Clarke looked behind them and something very heavy set in the pit of her stomach when she noticed that as far as she could see, all the lights were gone, too, and that she could no longer find the red, blinking beacon on the Arkadia Power Plant.

She finally broke out of her daze when Bellamy turned off the radio and everything around them went eerily quiet, save from the low hum of the running engine.

"I think we should keep going," Clarke said. Bellamy let out a long exhale and nodded, his lips pressed in a tight line.

He put the car back into gear and they began the slow crawl towards Arkadia. Well, if there was one good thing about having only one proper road going in and out of your town, it was that everyone knew it like the backs of their hands and Bellamy was able to drive easily, with only the faint light from the headlamps. Still, he drove slowly and the distance that would've normally taken them just a few moments, was now stretching forever and by the time they finally reached city limits, it was almost 11 pm.

They drove through the empty streets with dread but it wasn't until they reached further into the city that it really settled. They went past several rows of cars, just abandoned in the middle of the road, like the drivers had just disappeared. Whatever faint glow Clarke could see in the windows of the surrounding buildings, she assumed was coming from candles. She swallowed around the ball in her throat.

"Something is wrong," she muttered when Bellamy drove around what was left of a traffic accident – five cars crashed into one another, glass all around on the ground. He drove into the parking lot of their old high school and stopped the car.

"Yeah, you think?" Bellamy shot back but the joke fell flat. His voice was just as unsteady as hers.

"No, Bell, I mean something is _seriously_ wrong," Clarke countered, more insistent. "Yes, a power shortage wouldn't be such a big deal but when was the last time you heard fricking sirens before the lights went out? Besides, it's been almost an hour now - the emergency generators should've come on by now but that clearly didn't happen because it's all completely dark. And look at those abandoned cars, those are all new!"

Clarke slowed down her rant when she noticed Bellamy's expression of mixed interest, confusion and just a little bit of amusement because he did always enjoy it when she got all worked up like that. She couldn't help but smirk at him, even despite the unrest.

"New cars are mostly computers, Bellamy. They don't work very well without electricity. And they can be hacked."

Even in the darkness surrounding them, Clarke could tell that Bellamy went very, very pale.

"We have to go the hospital," she announced. Bellamy's head snapped up to her immediately, panic all over his face.

"What? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, I'm fine but if the generators there aren't on either, then it must be chaos. They'll need all the help they can get. Doctors, nurses, EMTs," she explained, pointing to herself.

"Clarke, it's been an hour, I'm sure there's already enough people there taking care of things."

She frowned and shook her head at him, taken slightly aback.

"What?"

"I think we should go home. Maybe try and check up on _our friends_." He put so much pressure on those last two words that Clarke nearly recoiled away from him. "They could need help, too."

"Bellamy, if they're in their own homes, then they are probably fine and if they are anywhere else, we won't be able to find them anyway," she argued. "Meanwhile, we know for a fact that that hospital is full of people who can't take care of themselves. What about all the people in the ICU? Or all the babies in the incubators, huh?"

Clarke sent him an incredulous look but his jaw was set. She couldn't believe that he of all people would try and dissuade her from doing all she could to help. He, who supported her all the way when she resigned from her surgical internship and decided to become a paramedic instead.

"Yeah, well, what about all the people who decided to take advantage of the situation and I don't know, started robbing the place of drugs and supplies?" he shot back with a snarl, his hands wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly, that the knuckles nearly ripped through the skin.

Clarke huffed with annoyance.

"Fine, do what you want," she said, unfastening her seatbelt. She jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind her.

She was already across the parking lot and on her way to the hospital by the time Bellamy scrambled out of the car and caught up to her, calling her name the whole time.

"Clarke!" he shouted, grabbing her elbow and yanking her to a stop. She turned around to face him, wrenching her arm out of his grasp.

"Are you really that desperate to stay away from me that you're willing to put yourself in danger just to do that?" Bellamy asked, nostrils flared in anger and frustration.

"I'm not—"

"If you're about to deny that you've been going out of you way to avoid me this past month, save it. I'm not stupid."

"Really?" Clarke threw her hands in the air. "_Now_ you wanna have this conversation?"

"Well, it's two miles to the hospital and we're not driving," he said waving the car keys in front of her face, "we might as well fill up that time with talking."

Clarke froze in her spot, blood rushing into her head with raising panic. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, was relief that no matter how pissed, he still decided to follow her instead of abandoning her in the middle of the road, but it was very quickly overrun by the desperate certainty that this was it. They were gonna have it all out in the open, she's not gonna be able to hold her tongue any longer and she's gonna lose him for good now.

She didn't know if it was because she stayed silent for too long or if noticed her expression, but Bellamy suddenly deflated and his features softened.

"Clarke, you left," he said in a small voice and Clarke's heart broke. Clearly, she hurt him and she hated herself for it. Even more so because if she wasn't such a chicken shit who couldn't face him, she would've known about it sooner.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking at her feet. She didn't dare look him in the eye.

"It's okay, Princess, I get it. It's okay if you regret what happened, I just wish you had talked to me about it. I don't want to lose you because of this."

Clarke jerked her head up, finally looking at Bellamy and tears prickled her eyes. All the annoyance she felt at the beginning of their argument was gone now and at the sight of his open, vulnerable face she only felt love. It no longer mattered to her that they were standing in the middle of the street or that they had no idea what was going on around them. He was more important than anything and she couldn't lose him either.

"No, Bellamy," she breathed, grabbing his hand in hers. She intertwined her fingers with his and smiled lightly when he tightened his grip on hers. "I don't regret anything, I couldn't. I just—

"I knew what you were gonna say and I was—_mostly_ fine with it but I didn't think I could actually hear it." Clarke tried for a weak smile but it disappeared when she really saw Bellamy's face. He looked absolutely wrecked. She felt his grip on her hand loosen so she squeezed harder, hoping he wouldn't pull away. "Bell—"

"What—" he cleared his throat weakly. "What did you think I was going to say?"

Clarke sent him a helpless glance. Did he really needed her to say it out loud?

But the way he was looking at her sent a bolt of electricity down her spine, so she took a deep breath and just went for it.

"What you always tell the girls you pick up in bars. That it was fun and we could do it again but you're not interested in anything more," she said with a small shrug, hoping it sounded casually enough that it didn't betray how much she hated saying it.

Bellamy stayed quiet, just staring at her like he'd never seen her before and Clarke started fidgeting, the hand that was still holding here getting clammy.

"And it's fine, really!" She continued. "I guess I just, it just meant something else to me than it did to you and I needed a while to get over it, you know? And I—"

"I was gonna tell you," he interrupted, running his hand through his hair, shaky fingers tangling in his messy curls. "When we went to sleep, I thought to myself 'I'm gonna tell her everything in the morning'. But then I woke up and you were gone. And then you couldn't even look at me, so I figured you thought it was a mistake and just wanted to forget all about it. That you knew why I…"

Clarke's head was spinning. She was pretty sure her mouth was open and she looked like a fish out of water, just gasping on air and helpless. Bellamy's eyes were boring into her but her brain hadn't yet full caught up to what he was saying. Did he really said what she thought he said?

Bellamy took a deep, shaky breath.

"Do you remember Echo?" he asked and Clarke nodded slowly in confirmation, not sure what that had to do with anything.

Of course she remembered Echo. Out of all of Bellamy's one night stands, she was the only one who actually stuck for a while and every time Clarke saw her kiss Bellamy, she was overcome with an urge to pick her own eyes out with a rusty spoon.

“You wanna know why we stopped seeing each other?” Bellamy asked but Clarke could only stare at him. “She said she wanted to try something serious but decided not to bother since I was so clearly in love with someone else.”

Clarke’s mouth snapped shut and she blinked at him in stunned silence.

“And then, when I finally made a move on that girl, she left without a word, so that kinda sucked,” he finished, raising the corner of his mouth in a small, shy smile.

“You made a move on her?” Clarke choked out. “I thought she kissed you first.”

Bellamy grinned at her and barked a surprised, watery laugh. Clarke’s heart stuttered at the sound.

“Only after I invited her to stay the night.”

“Yeah, but she flirted with you the whole night before that!”

Clarke took a step forward until they were standing only inches away from each other, her breasts grazing Bellamy’s chest when she took a deep breath. Bellamy brought both of his hands to her face. He brushed his fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her ears, and put his hands on her neck, thumbs rubbing slow circles into her pulse points, driving her insane.

“Let’s agree to disagree,” Bellamy said. Clarke raised her hands to his sides and wrapped them in his shirt, tugging him closer. He smiled at her.

“I love you so much, Clarke. I’m in love with you.”

Clarke stumbled forward, burying her face into his chest, tears falling from her eyes and soaking the material under her cheeks. She felt Bellamy’s arms wrap around her shoulders, hugging her close. Clarke lifted her head, resting her chin on his clavicle.

“I love you, too.”

One of Bellamy’s hands moved from the small of her back to the back of her neck as he guided her head upwards, closer, closer to him. Their lips were but a breath away and the world around them disappeared. There was nothing but them and a wailing coming from somewhere close to them.

Clarke let go of Bellamy with a confused frown on her face. His arms fell away from her and he took a couple of steps back, looking around, searching for the source of the cry.

They exchanged a look when they realised it was coming from one of the crashed cars in the middle of the street. They jogged up to them and started checking inside. And there it was, in the very middle of the accident was an old, beat-up pick-up truck. Clarke rushed in to check in on the woman in the front seat but there was no need to hurry, she was long dead.

“She must’ve hit her head really hard on the steering wheel and without an air bag…” Clarke guessed while Bellamy worked in the backseat, untangling the little girl from her car seat. She couldn’t have been more than a year old and she was obviously distressed. Clarke wondered how she managed to stay quiet for so long because right now, she was screaming her tiny lungs out.

Bellamy handed the girl over to Clarke for a check-up while he busied himself with taking out all of the baby supplies and the seat out of the car. The girl calmed down while Clarke rocked her gently but she obviously needed more care than they could provide in the middle on the road.

“I think her name is Madi,” Bellamy said, pointing at the letter dangling from the mobile stuck to the car’s ceiling, and he was probably right, seeing how the girl turned to look at him when he said the name.

“You were right, we need to go home,” Clarke said.

“Oh, now she agrees.” Bellamy snorted. Clarke kicked his shin lightly but miscalculated and Bellamy ended up wrapping his arms around her to keep her and the baby upright. Clarke melted into his embrace for a moment before stepping away. She grabbed one of the bags and marched back to Bellamy’s car.

“We should go to Raven’s,” Clarke suggested when they were all settled and both breathed a relieved breath when the engine turned over. This was not the moment for the car to misbehave.

“Yeah, if there’s anyone who’s prepared for anything, that would be her,” Bellamy agreed and drove away from the parking lot.

***

When they arrived at Raven’s house-slash-garage, everything was pitch-black and Clarke started to get worried. What if Raven was hurt? What if she wasn’t there at all?

Bellamy got out of the car first and checked all the doors and windows while Clarke stayed behind with Madi. He returned shaking his head.

“It doesn’t look like she’s home but the good news is, I think her alarm system is offline so we probably won’t get our heads blown off if we step on the wrong tile.”

They gathered all of their things out of the car and Clarke paused for a moment when she grabbed her luggage from the boot. Was her mother alright? If Abby knew that something had happened in Arkadia, she would be worried out of her skull and that couldn’t be good for sobriety.

Madi’s soft cry brought Clarke back to reality. She’ll have to find a way to contact her mother later but they had more pressing matters to attend to for now.

Bellamy found the right key from the ring he was always carrying with him. Clarke’s mouth twisted in a small, happy smile while she watched as he unlocked the door and the warm feeling of love spread all over her. He really was the mom friend, who had the keys to all of his friends’ apartments, so he could always help them out. 

The moment they were inside, Clarke handed Madi over to Bellamy and rushed to Raven’s garage. She was looking through all the half-assembled shit their friend had spread out all over the place and in the corner of her eye, she saw that Bellamy had caught up to her, a questioning look on his face.

“Do you remember Roan?” she asked and Bellamy only nodded in answer, one eyebrow cocked up.

“He and Raven were actually hooking up for a few months and he would buy her all kinds of old stuff in auctions so she’d have something cool to tinker with.”

“Are you saying that he seduced her with antique equipment?”

“Well, technically, I believe at that point it was more of a ‘thanks for having sex with me, please keep doing it’ antique equipment,” Clarke explained. She glanced over at Bellamy and snorted when she noticed the admonishing look he had on his face as he pointed to Madi, as if telling her to watch her language.

“Anyway, he bought her this really cool radio and I think, _I hope_, she actually got it going.”

Clarke moved another box and there it was, all shiny and beautifully restored radio. She started fiddling with the knobs, trying to catch the right frequency when Bellamy came over and sat down on a stool, Madi clinging to him like a koala bear. Clarke tried not to think about all the things that seeing him with a baby made her feel.

“How do you know all that?” Bellamy asked, his voice quieter and Clarke assumed it meant Madi had fallen asleep, so she adjusted her volume accordingly.

“You know how my dad was an engineer, right?” she asked and Bellamy nodded. “Well, he had his garage at home, just like this one, and when I was a kid, that place was like a playground to me. I loved sitting there with him, just watching him work while I drew or did some small project all by myself.”

“He did get pretty pissed a couple of times when I accidentally drew all over his designs for work but he was always very happy to explain to me everything I wanted to know. I never got into it enough to follow in his footsteps but a few things stuck, I guess.”

“And all that talk about back-up generators?”

“Yeah, that’s dad, too. His firm had a few contracts with the city when I was a little older, working on making Arkadia a little more green and maybe more independent, and he told me some of what he was working on.”

Clarke smiled a sad smile, remembering her father. She cleared her throat and smirked at Bellamy.

“So, you better not piss me off, cause I can hot-wire that piece of junk of yours with my eyes closed and I’ll be on my way before you even know it.”

Bellamy sent her a withering glare but his shoulder shook with a silent laughter. Clarke grabbed the radio’s transceiver and moved, so that she was leaning back against Bellamy’s leg. She called out into the transceiver a few times and tried different frequencies but only silence answered her, so soon, she gave up.

Bellamy stood up from the stool and grabbed a blanket to make a cradle for Madi in one of Raven’s empty crates. Clarke settled against the wall and when Bellamy was done with Madi and the girl was sleeping soundly, he slid down next to Clarke.

“Hey, it’s all gonna be alright,” he said, putting his arm around her and pulling her closer, so she was half-draped over his lap.

Clarke nodded stiffly. She put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. It was quick and dry, and she pulled away quickly afterwards.

“I love you,” she said with fire in her eyes and this time, it was Bellamy who pulled her in and didn’t let go until they were both out of air.

***

Clarke wasn’t sure when they all fell asleep but when she woke up, the sun was already rising. She wiggled around for a bit before she realised that the thing that woke her up was a sound coming from the radio. She got onto her knees and shuffled closer, jostling Bellamy awake in the process. She grabbed his hand and tugged him in, her other hand already wrapped on the transceiver.

“—is an emergency broadcast,” said the automatic voice. It repeated its mantra of ‘this is an emergency broadcast’ a few more times before the tone changed and in came a new voice.

“This is General Charles Pike with the US Army speaking. Last night at 10 pm, we have been hit. A computer virus, identified as Becca Franco’s AI program called ALIE tore through out defences and attacked out nation. It disable the power grid first, before moving on to infecting every device connected to the internet. We have lost control over our entire military fleet and within two hours, bombs were dropped on twenty five biggest American cities and many more, all over the world.”

Clarke gasped and nearly dropped the transceiver. The man wasn’t done yet, though.

“As of now, they number of casualties is still unknown but we know it’s high. What we don’t know, is what ALIE has planned next. We can only pray that she’s not heading for the nuclear arsenal but we cannot afford to stay optimistic. We wish we had the possibility to provide shelter for everyone but unfortunately, we don’t. Nevertheless, there are nuclear bunkers spread all over the country and we urge everyone to at least try and make their way to the nearest one. This may be our only chance of survival. May we meet again.”

The automatic voice of ‘emergency broadcast’ came back and when Pike’s message played again, Clarke let go of the transceiver and fell into Bellamy’s open arms. He held her close to his chest and Clarke could feel how tense the muscles on his back were under her fingers.

“What do we do now?” she asked, panic rising.

“I—I don’t know, Clarke.” He clutched his hand on the pony tail running down her back. “But whatever it is, we’ll do it together.”

She moved away to look him in the eye.

“Yeah, together.”

**Author's Note:**

> well, that didn't exactly end very happily but i hope you still liked it! comments and kudos will be welcomed like manna!
> 
> come and find me on tumblr @[carrieeve](https://carrieeve.tumblr.com). i promise a lot of screaming and flailing after the finale.


End file.
